Strawberries
by Prelude in Indigo
Summary: Because it's really not worth eating the strawberries unless they're perfect. And it's so hard to find those perfect strawberries... OzxSharon ONESHOT


**Helloo people who may be reading this. :3 Tis me, Anna!**

**Um, yeah... I changed my penname to Purple Psycho FIsh... But, there's more about that on my profile. It's a long story... well, not really. I was ticked off at my brother and was about to call him a 'psycho b****' and just in time I remembered that he was a ten year old, so it came out like this: "PSYCHO b-FISH." And purple is my faviest color. :3**

**ANYWAY... this was spawned when I was ranting to one of my buddies on FanFiction (love ya, Aquen!) about how annoying it is when strawberries aren't ripe. =.= Cause, they're so yucky, but no one ever picks ripe strawberries! D: They just go 'oh, this strawberry is red, let's throw it in the bucket.' And then we get icky strawberries with a stringy, hard, white, center. It's disgusting. People suck sometimes.**

**Uh... but anyway... -.-''' I was ranting and then this popped into my head. :D And look! Break is involved, but he's not in the place of main character!  
I'm so proud of myself...**

**Lawl, anyway... I hope that you enjoy this! :P**

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"Would you like some strawberry cake with your tea, Master Oz?" Sharon asks sweetly, holding the plate out to Oz.

Oz blinks a little bit (trying to shake the image of Sharon in a maid's uniform) and looks down at the cake Sharon is offering to him across the table. It is a butter cake- his favorite- with freshly cut red strawberries spread across the top, that are perfectly ripe.

"Absolutely. Miss Sharon," Oz says, trying for his most charming voice.

Sharon gives him a blank stare and he clears his throat.

"Just, ah, something stuck in my throat." Oz blushes hotly and takes the cake from Sharon while Break snickers something about 'little boys grown too big for their britches.'

She smiles graciously, pretending not to have heard her servant (although she really did, Oz knows, because nothing slips past her) and stirs her tea with a spoon.

Oz proceeds to break off the corner of his cake, all while shielding it from Break's prying eyes, and nibble at it. There is whipped frosting slathered across the top. Then he goes for the entire tip, picking up one small strawberry piece. Mmm- it is perfectly ripe and juicy, precisely the shade of red strawberries should be.

Just as he is putting the third bite into his mouth, Sharon giggles sweetly. She wipes her lips on her napkin –even though there was nothing on them in the first place. "You have frosting on the corner of your mouth, Master Oz."

He blushes, tries to swallow that bite- which really was too large in the first place- and attempts to get that image of Sharon saying "There's frosting on the corner of your mouth, Master Oz-" out of his head, because he really is blowing it out of proportion. "Erm, sorry."

Oz wipes his mouth on his napkin and resumes eating, sneaking furtive glances at Sharon as she sips her tea. She is the prettiest girl he has ever seen- even more than the one with the big, mournful blue eyes and dark brown hair- with her pink lips and pink cheeks and slight form. Even her eyes have a pinkish tint to them. Is that normal? No, it's not, but it really is lovely.

And then of course, Break has to ruin it by loudly chanting 'awkward silence' into the still air.

While Sharon turns steadily pinker, Oz devours another section of his cake. He is working in slowly to savor it, and also to prolong his stay at the table, where he can watch Sharon eat her delicious angel-food cake.

The strawberries really are exactly the way he likes them- not all mushy from over-ripeness, and not hard and stringy near the center the way they are if they aren't ripe enough. They are of perfect size and shape too, cut into perfect slices. (Because, really, the under-ripe or rotten strawberries other households serve really get on his nerves.) Very sweet too.

"Master Oz," Sharon says, interrupting Oz's mental tirade. (He wonders briefly how ogling Sharon's pretty features turned into admiring the strawberries.) "Would you like some tea?"

"Tea?" Oz says stupidly.

Sharon tries her best to refrain from smirking- and fails. "Yes, Oz. Tea."

Oz congratulates himself on making her feel comfortable enough to call him simply 'Oz.' And then he realizes she has only relaxed because of his stupidity- it's something though- because it is teatime after all. "I would love some tea."

She leans over the table to pour Oz's tea, making him think of Maid Sharon again –no, bad Oz, bad Oz…- and he blushes quickly. "Erm, that's okay, Sharon, I can get it myself."

With a smile, Sharon relinquishes the teapot and sits back down, smoothing over her frilly pink dress.

Break coughs loudly and murmurs quite loud enough for the entire room to hear him, "Pervert Oz."

And then, Sharon turns a pleasing shade of red and stares down at her food, stabbing at it with her fork loosely. Oz finds himself suddenly very uncomfortable, because Sharon is looking anywhere but at him, Gilbert is turning a faint shade of pink, Alice looks very curious, and Break is giving Oz a very disconcerting stare.

He dimly hears Gilbert telling Break to quit attacking his poor master, because it's not really his fault, since Oz has a weakness for pretty girls... ("But that only makes it more true!" Break insists, and then laughs when Gilbert gets so mad he turns red.)

Oz is glad to see that Sharon's blushing has begun to fade. He smiles cockily at her from across the table. "You shouldn't be so uptight all the time, Miss Sharon."

Sharon's eyes glint with a hidden something and she cocks her head to the side, smiling much too sweetly. "Oh really, Master Oz?"

"Erm..." He struggles not to come up empty-handed. "Ah, yes. You really... shouldn't..." Is it possible for something to be this sweet? "Because... Never mind."

She snickers and returns to eating her cake. It is crumb cake- and she looks so happy that Oz is happy too. How much does Sharon love crumb cake? And then again, Sharon manages not to drop a single crumb. Oz stares at her in mild interest.

"Would you like another cake, Master Oz?" Sharon asks again, her cheeks dimpling adorably.

"Sure, Sharon," Oz says easily. And then he wonders for a second why Sharon calls him master, because after all, they are both heirs to two of the Noble Houses.

Sharon pushes another cake across the table, chocolate, piled high with whipped cream and... yes. Strawberries. She looks at it just the tiniest bit enviously.

Oz smiles at her. "Thank you Sharon. Do you want to have some?"

She blushes- such the lady- but doesn't take her gaze from the cake. A small pink tongue flits out and wets her lips, making Oz blush again. "May I?"

"Sure, Sharon!" he says peppily, and breaks a piece off of the cake. He holds his fork out to Sharon.

The girl doesn't answer, but she turns the tiniest bit pink- very, adorably, pink. More like a light red- the same shade as these strawberries. Which gets Oz to wondering what would Sharon look like in a strawberry-red gown, with soft pink frills. And a cute red ribbon for her hair…

"Oz," Gilbert murmurs in his ear. "You can't offer cake to a lady on your fork."

Upon hearing this, Oz's face deepens in shade and he begins to pull the fork back. "Sorry-"

"That's okay." Sharon is grabbing onto Oz's wrist now too, and she smiles endearingly at him, even though her cheeks are still a tiny bit red. "I don't really mind."

Much to Oz's surprise, she takes the fork- _takes the fork-_ and bites the cake off the end. (He thinks his heart might just explode.) Sharon's face is dreamily content, and she sighs delightfully.

Oz is still a faintly reddish color, and he busies himself with plucking a strawberry from the top of his cake and sticking it all in his mouth in one go. He chomps it in half, only to come into contact with a tough and stringy center. _Bleghhh._

"Master?" Gilbert says, patting him on the shoulder. "Are you okay?"

He spits the whole strawberry into his napkin neatly, and sticks out his tongue. "Fine, Gilbert,' he says brightly. Oz stares at the somewhat mangled strawberry sadly. "Bad strawberry."

"That's a perfectly good strawberry," Gilbert points out somewhat shyly, as if he is certain his master is insane but doesn't wish to say it.

"Nooo," Oz whines lazily, stuffing a piece of chocolate cake in his mouth. "It's not ripe, and it's all… yucky! Gilbert, _why_ do people have to be such losers?" He sighs loudly and dramatically.

Gilbert isn't sure just how to respond to this.

Break gave a sigh to match Oz's and waved his cake fork around dangerously in the air. "Ahh, Oz is such a spoiled brat sometimes."

"Hey-!"

And Gilbert and Break are fighting once again. Oz takes the chance to observe Sharon some more. She is still eating that small piece of cake, nibbling away at it and chewing carefully and properly. The expression on her face is so cute that Oz almost wants to cry. However, there is still the matter of the strawberries. The cake will not be half as good without the strawberries, but with it will be less good.

And so the dilemma is- to settle for half-best or not?

Alice, he muses, is sort of like that not quite ripe berry. Sweet and delicious but still with that unpleasant center- Echo too, that silver-haired girl with emotionless eyes. And he supposes that that girl he used to meet at the marketplace is sort of overripe- sweet and yummy but almost syrupy, and mushy. Sharon is definitely his perfect berry- pretty, and sour in just the right spots. (Sweet berries can get overly annoying sometimes.)

Oz sets the somewhat mangled red fruit to the side of his plate and smiles at Sharon. She smiles back, hesitating slightly.

"You've got some frosting on the corner of your mouth, lady Sharon."

And of course, we all know what happens next.

~\./~

"Sharon is my perfect strawberry!~"

"Oz- wait, WHAT!"

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**Uhh... the last bit was an afterthought...**

**To be honest, I wasn't really sure whether I should put this under humor or not, but I guess that's where it belongs... xD All my fics have humor in them, but this one seemeed to be more romance than the rest... Anyway, I really hope you like it!**

**REVIEW! REVIEW AND WE SHALL SAVE THE WORLD FROM ICKY STRAWBERRIES!**


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